With a thing like that (next door to witchcraft almost) weighing on his mind, the wonder was that he could think of anything else.

The poor man must have found in the restlessness of his thoughts the illusion of being engaged in an active contest with some power of evil; for his last words as he went lingeringly down the poop ladder expressed the quaint hope that he would get him, Powell, "on our side yet." Mr.Powell--just imagine a straightforward youngster assailed in this fashion on the high seas--answered merely by an embarrassed and uneasy laugh which reflected exactly the state of his innocent soul.

The apoplectic mate, already half-way down, went up again three steps of the poop ladder.

Why, yes.

A proper young fellow, the mate expected, wouldn't stand by and see a man, a good sailor and his own skipper, in trouble without taking his part against a couple of shore people who--Mr.
Powell interrupted him impatiently, asking what was the trouble?
"What is it you are hinting at ?" he cried with an inexplicable irritation.
"I don't like to think of him all alone down there with these two," Franklin whispered impressively.